


Alfresco

by Dorinda



Category: The Persuaders (tv)
Genre: Episode Related, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Repression, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorinda/pseuds/Dorinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stranded together in the open air, all buttoned up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alfresco

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joandarck](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=joandarck).



> Starts on the last shot of the episode "Five Miles to Midnight".  
> (recap: http://persuaders71.livejournal.com/3201.html)

 

 

"She'll be back," Danny said as Sid drove off into the distance. 

But Brett looked as dubious about that as a lord was probably allowed. " _Andiamo,_ " he said darkly, waving one hand at the miles (and miles, and miles) in front of them. 

So, yet again, they started walking. 

"I'm telling you, she'll come back," Danny insisted. "By the time we get to the end of this field, she'll be here."

She wasn't. Not by the end of the field, anyway. They turned onto the faint track that should lead them the thirty miles to the nearest town, and Danny shrugged. 

"Any minute now," he said. "She'll be back."

"She will, will she?" Brett squinted dramatically at the horizon. Kind of nobly, is how he did his squinting, like a sea captain--a sea captain completely (and nobly) abandoned, without another ship around for miles. Danny snorted. 

"Look, your lordship, I know women." He patted Brett on the arm. "She's just playing hard to get, that's all. She's coming back to get us."

Brett eyed Danny sidelong in that way he had, giving him the eyebrow. "I don't suppose you'd care to lay a wager on it?"

"Lay a _wager_!" Danny said. "That's just a fancy way of saying 'you wanna bet.' And you still owe me a hundred bucks from before."

"Double or nothing."

Boy, if Brett didn't wipe the smug look off his face, it was gonna freeze like that. "Fine. Have it your way." He thrust out his hand, and Brett enfolded it in his own. They shook. And maybe Danny squeezed a little harder than was totally necessary, but Brett didn't flinch.

"Yeah, I just hate to take candy from a babe, that's all," Danny said, kicking a pebble out of the way. "She'll be back. You know she's crazy about me."

"Oh, certainly. Not counting the last two words, of course."

Danny thought that over, did the math, and made a face. He tugged off his gloves and tucked them in his belt, and Brett, following suit, slipped his jacket off and draped it over one arm. The warming breeze kept tossing Brett's hair in his face, and he repeatedly shook his head and smoothed it back with one big hand, like Sid was still there to take pictures.

When the track started winding up a gradual slope, the slight difference in their stride lengths started to tell, and Danny would've fallen behind if he hadn't kicked into a higher gear. Hurrying made him trip, though, and he collided heavily with Brett.

"First day with the new feet?" Brett asked, so sweetly that Danny wanted to sock him.

"Stop flapping and make yourself useful." Danny slipped his arm through Brett's. "There. At least you've got a future as a walking stick." 

They kept walking--strolling, now, it felt like, with the arm-in-arm. Brett was quiet, automatically bending his elbow to anchor Danny's grasp, obviously saving his breath for the climb.

They turned onto a switchback, Danny gratefully leaning in to the pressure of Brett's arm. "I have never done so much mountain climbing in my _life_." He gasped theatrically for breath. "It's like the end of The Sound of Music around here."

Brett looked over at him like he'd been nudged out of deep thoughts. "The sound of what?"

"Music. You know, the movie?" No recognition dawned in Brett's eyes, and Danny shook his head impatiently. "Come on, you've gotta know that one, Julie Andrews is one of your people."

"My people," he said, brows arched up high.

Danny gave him a look. "Sure. Troublemakers," he said. "No, _Englishpeople,_ of course, dum-dum. He isn't, the guy, whatsisface, I don't know where he's from."

"Not one of your people, then."

"Oh, who knows," Danny said. "He has one of those actor voices, could be from anywhere. I doubt he's from the old neighborhood, I'll tell you that much." He mulled it over. "But other than that, boy, it could be our story. Except for she was a nun."

Brett gave a sigh. "Yes, that's us to a T."

"I could teach you some of the songs," Danny offered. "Kill some time. How's your soprano?"

"Left behind with my boyhood, I'm afraid," Brett said absently.

Danny stopped and stared at him, their linked arms bringing Brett to a halt too. "You mean you used to be one of those little choirboys? Like in the Christmas concerts?"

It was funny, the way that slight curve of Brett's lips seemed almost shy, under the haughty business. "Let's not spend too much time enumerating my accomplishments," he said in his best lordly manner. "We would be here all day."

"It'd take all day to count to one?" Danny said back automatically, and he started up the path again, drawing Brett along.

"Terribly droll," Brett muttered.

The trail turned on another switchback and got steeper. Sid seemed to have made it just fine, though, judging from the tire tracks. "You know what...in The Sound of Music, when they got up in the Alps at the end, whatsisface, the dad, he carried one of them on his back." Danny cast a hopeful look sideways, squeezing Brett's arm a little.

Brett tipped his head up, as if looking for landmarks in the sky, or catching a scent on the breeze. "Daniel, that's one thing I've learned to appreciate about you: your robust sense of humor. I don't care what everyone else says."

"Ha ha. Does that mean no?"

"It does." 

Danny groaned. "But there are thirty _miles_ of this."

"Surely fewer, by now. We may have covered four or five."

"Oh boy," Danny said, clutching his heart. "That many. Look--Sid's coming back any time now--"

"We shall see."

"--Well, she is. So what's the rush?"

Brett smoothed his hair again. "Daniel, just because you can't keep up, that doesn't mean I'm rushing."

"Oh yes you are," Danny countered. This was whiling away the time really nicely, even if it did use up valuable air. "I don't know where you got your hurry from, all of a sudden. It's not like you were in that much of a hurry to get in the jeep in the first place."

He waited for the arch reply, ready to lob it back like a tennis ball, but it didn't come. He looked over, and saw Brett glancing at him kind of uneasily. 

"I was giving you a leg up," Brett said after a pause. But he didn't have his full heart in it, and that wasn't as fun. So Danny poked again:

"You think I couldn't hop in myself? Look, pal, my hopping skills are not to be denied. You've seen me hop twice as high as that, easy." 

"Then why didn't _you_ get in first?" Brett countered quickly.

"Me!"

"You. Why didn't you get in when you threw your jacket in?"

It was a good point, but Danny never had been much for good points. "You were closer."

"Oh, scarcely."

"You were! If you'd gotten in the front seat like you were supposed to, you'd'a been out of my way. Kind of weird, if you ask me." 

Brett didn't glance over at him anymore; his eyes were all for the far distance, guarded and unreadable. "Yes, I certainly should have got in. Then Sid and I both could have left you behind." 

"In your dreams, your lordship," Danny said, preening a little.

"Indeed," said Brett, his voice very dry.

Another switchback. The tire tracks veered to miss some rocks, and in the course of following them, somehow Brett's arm slipped from Danny's. They walked on either side of a big rock that lapped into the trail.

"Bread and butter," Danny recited automatically. Bet they didn't say that one in lordsville.

Brett was fussing with his jacket, slipping it back on and buttoning it up, tugging his ascot neat again. Danny's words only seemed to reach him after a big delay, and he finally said, politely, "Hm?"

"Nothing," Danny sighed. It wasn't as much fun when he couldn't get the confused look. Or the snooty one. Or the big sulk, with the lower lip poking out. 

So they kept walking. Brett kept just out of comfortable arm-hooking range. And Sid kept not coming back. Danny hooked his thumbs in his belt, scowling. It wasn't even the bet that bugged him, really--it was the principle. Or something. Who knew?

All right, and also the day was getting warmer, the path was getting steeper, and still Brett just kept striding along with his head down and his shoulders tight, like he was planning to cover all thirty miles in one swell foop. This wasn't like before, towing Sid and Rocco--no, actually, Howard, and thanks a lot, Judge Fulton, you creep--and bickering happily all the way. This wasn't like The Sound of Music anymore, either, with the swelling music and the happy ending in the distance. This was like an endurance test.

"Aren't you tired?" Danny finally asked, after maybe a mile had gone by--though who could even count?--without Brett's marching pace slacking off one bit. Danny did a hop-skip to keep step, looking suspiciously up into Brett's face. "You're the one who kept watch in the barn while I got a little shuteye."

"It's just a question of priorities," Brett said, his voice distant. "Mind over matter."

"Mind over--boy, you are unbelievable." Danny scuffed his boot heels in the weedy dust. "Is that like how you stay clean because you 'think clean'?"

"Precisely."

Danny looked him over. Yup, still clean. Buttoned up again into that pinstripe jacket, ascot tied snug around his throat. Sunburned across his nose, sure, but he carried that off the same way he managed everything else, like a fashion statement. It was enough to make a guy wish for a mud puddle, really--like back in the neighborhood, when the new kid showed up in a perfect white blouse and glossy shoes, and you just had to jump on him and roll him over a time or two. Trade some punches till you were both good and scuffed. Then the ice cream truck sounded its bell in the distance, and you'd help each other up in time to race for it, like nobody'd ever been new or on the outside in his life.

"Boy, an ice cream truck would be good right about now," he said suddenly, and when Brett shot him the confused double-eyebrow, he just gave a sweet smile right back, feeling much cheerier.

He picked up the pace and kept up easily with Brett's long legs for the next couple miles. No mud puddles presented themselves, which was a shame. Neither did any topics of conversation, besides the fact that Sid was going to come back no matter what Brett said, and they'd been over that one.

Brett was still stepping along, eating up the trail, march, march, march--but mind over matter or not, the sun was shining down on them both, glinting off his lordship's fair hair, and under its building warmth Danny could see the sweat breaking. That's something even thinking clean couldn't control. It gathered across Brett's forehead, glistening at his temples, beading on his upper lip like dew. 

Danny wiped his palm across his own forehead and fanned himself with dramatic whewing noises. Brett was staring resolutely straight ahead, the Charge of the Light-headed Brigade, but Danny was sure he was noticing. It wasn't like him not to notice. Course, it wasn't like him to suffer in silence, either. 

"Nice day for it," Danny said at last, trying to hook back in, rubbing his hand dry on his hip. "Nothing like a relaxing thirty miles after a breakfast we didn't have."

"Perhaps you should save your breath," Brett suggested. "It would make you feel better. And if not you, then certainly me."

There was that distance again, a strain in Brett's voice underneath all the sass. Danny didn't need cue cards to know a door had slammed closed. Ordinarily maybe Danny would just let him--but today was different. He didn't want to be saddled with two tons of prostrate Sinclair after a heat stroke or something.

So he did save his breath, but only in order to pay closer attention to the trees lining the track, looking for a good spot to get through. He didn't see any recognizable footpaths--this whole road seemed lightly-traveled in general, even counting Sid's faint tire tracks in the weeds--but eventually he picked a gap between a couple groves of trees that looked promising.

"C'mon," he said, tugging at Brett's sleeve and veering toward the right. 

"Where are you going?" Brett sounded peevish, but he veered obediently over toward Danny's tug. Inborn reflex, maybe, to protect the Sinclair wardrobe.

" _We,_ Mayfair, where are _we_ going." Danny slipped between the trees and headed down a slope thick with tangled undergrowth. "And _we_ are going to take a little break in the shade, before _we_ keel over and die."

Branches and twigs rustled and crackled behind him as Brett followed at a distance. "Well, Daniel, I don't see why you're so worried. After all, Sid will be back to save us any minute now. Isn't that right?"

Boy, some guys were really asking for it. And if it hadn't been for that same strain under Brett's voice, Danny told himself he wouldn't've thought twice about giving it to him with both barrels. But forget it--he had more important things to think about. 

Thorns, for one thing. Pushing through a clump of shrubs, he got a couple stabs right in the thigh, and stopped to unsnarl himself from a mass of...hey, a mass of what looked a lot like blackberry bushes, prickers and all. He plucked one tempting little specimen and touched it to his tongue, just to make sure. Oh, they were blackberries, all right. So he ransacked a couple handfuls of them before barging the rest of the way down the hill.

For another thing, he caught a nice sound just ahead, where the slope evened out into a small glade, flecked with sun and shadow, carpeted with grassy turf--a sweet little trickling sound, a lot like water might sound if captured in the wild. This really was his lucky day, as long as you ignored the getting ditched in the countryside part of it.

"Teatime!" he sang out, and made a beeline for the edge of the stream. A nice patch of moss beckoned to him, so he piled the blackberries, threw himself right down on his belly, and beamed fondly into the water. "Hello there."

Brett knelt slowly at his side, still all buttoned up, but casting longing glances at the stream. He looked for all the world like he really was wishing for a tea set, so he could take his refreshment properly. Poor guy. Danny turned his attention fully to the water, reaching out to scoop up cool, bubbling double handfuls and suck them down. Nothing like it in the world.

When he paused to check on Brett, he saw him patting his pockets thoughtfully. "What are you waiting for? It ain't gonna get any wetter."

Brett didn't answer; he finally slipped one hand into his inside pocket and brought out Danny's flask. Danny had almost forgotten about it since their narrow escape in the barn; he'd thought maybe Brett had left it behind. And it wasn't like it'd do them any good, anyway-- "What's that for? You already polished it all off."

No answer still. Brett uncapped it and dipped it into the running water, waited for it to fill, and lifted the flask neatly to his lips. Danny grinned. "Oh, that's wonderful, your majesty." He scooped up one more drink for himself and plunged his face right into the current, blowing bubbles, heaving his head back out to shake it, water spraying everywhere. Spluttering, he took another look at Brett.

Brett was sitting still, the flask paused on its trip down from his mouth, water splotched across his face and jacket. "Thank you, Daniel," he said, "but I prefer to drink my water via ingestion, not absorption."

"I don't know what you're even talking about," Danny said, slicking one hand down his face and shaking droplets off. "And I don't think you do either." With that, he retrieved the berries, knee-walked across the springy grass, and settled his back against a big tree, stretching his legs out to give them a rest from all the andiamo-ing.

It gave him a perfect angle to watch Brett, actually, who sniffed and continued to sip delicately at the flask until he'd drained it. Then a refill and a repeat performance. Seemed like a lot of trouble to go to. But then, what was the hurry--Danny's feet didn't really feel like getting back on the road just yet, and he figured Brett's didn't, either. Especially in those shoes. He kept an idle eye on Brett and occupied himself counting the berries into two piles. One for him, one for me. One for him, two for me. 

At last, Brett refilled the flask and capped it, slipping it back into his inside pocket. Very Boy Scout--or whatever they had over here instead of the Boy Scouts, Danny had no idea, the Lad Adventurers? Or, wait, wasn't it the other way around? He had a vague memory of them maybe coming from England in the first place. Explained the little outfits. Still hard to picture his lordship as one of 'em, though. Roughing it. Danny smirked to himself, eyeing that pinstripe-and-ascot business. Definitely not regulation uniform.

"What?"

Brett's sudden question startled him out of his train of thought, and he realized he'd been smirking right at him, not just in his general direction. He was feeling good now, cool and comfortable, and with the prospect of food, even, so he just patted the grass next to him. "Come on, unbend a while, eat up. Miles to go before we sleep. If we ever do."

But Brett rose and brushed invisible grass stems off his knees. "Then we'd best be going, hadn't we."

Watered or not, the guy was clearly not rested, pose or no pose. There was still sweat on his forehead and trickling down the sides of his face, and that strain still ran under his voice. Who did he think he was kidding? 

"Oh, c'mon," Danny said. "If you won't give yourself a break, how about giving me one? And hey, maybe unbutton your jacket again. Go nuts, live a little." He folded his hands across his stomach decisively.

Brett frowned, but Danny just blinked up at him and then looked into the distance, easing his shoulders comfortably against the tree trunk. It was getting under his skin, though, how hard he was having to work just to cut Brett the slack Brett wouldn't cut himself. 

He pretended it wasn't bugging him, Brett standing there like Danny was making him late for a party, practically checking his watch. Danny breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, in with the good air, out with the bad air, replenishing his cells and whatnot. Oxygenate the, uh, hemoglobin. Much better. 

Oh, but Brett was gonna make him nuts.

"Sit down, wouldja!" Danny said. "I know I don't have any soft-boiled eggs on golden china or anything, but it's breakfast. Were you born in a barn?"

To Danny's surprise, Brett edged up to the tree and actually sat down without any more resistance, back braced against it, his shoulder not quite touching Danny's. Danny handed him his pile of berries, which he caught in his palms with a quiet and well-bred word of thanks, and they gazed in different directions for a while. 

As Danny ate up his share of breakfast, given that there wasn't likely to be any conversation with His Royal Icicle over there, he kept thinking about the jeep. It wasn't his fault they hadn't gotten in. It _wasn't,_ no matter what Brett said. It was Brett who'd walked over to give him the boost. The totally unnecessary boost. He tried to feel huffy about that for a while.

It didn't work too well, though. Because the thing was--weirdly, it wasn't even that Danny really minded him not getting in. The ride would've been nice, but the leg-up was nice too, necessary or not.

It was true that that bit of fooling around had given Sid the chance to take her revenge, driving off and literally leaving them in the dust. And it was also true that there'd already been that sense in the air, her impatience at a boil before they'd ever even reached the car, so it wasn't like they should've taken her presence for granted. 

But...frankly, who could help it? Danny poked another couple berries into his mouth and sucked on them, smiling a little. The job had finally been finished for good, all the risk offloaded where it belonged, nobody at gunpoint anymore or anything. He'd felt goofy with it, lightheaded, and not just because he'd barely had an hour's worth of sleep in a couple days' worth of cross-country fleeing. They'd been...oh, off the hook, he supposed, whatever that feeling was that made your whole chest expand like a helium balloon, and they were together, and the Swiss sunshine was gorgeous, gilding Brett's hair and bringing out his freckles. What were you supposed to do with that?

So when Brett had stepped up, braced himself, and taken Danny's foot in his hands, Danny had gladly given over to it. His arms fit around Brett's shoulders so naturally, Brett's head pretty much nestling in the crook of Danny's neck. The coil of potential energy there was mind-blowing, that moment when Danny was just about to push off and catapult into the air, their muscles bunched and readied together. Even as she'd driven away, they'd kept hold of each other, slow to react, like waking up from something that was just about to come true.

Danny licked juice off his fingers, slid over just a bit, and nudged his shoulder against Brett's. "Hey," he said, not looking at him, still half-smiling off at the creek. "How come you didn't get in the car?"

There was a long silence, until Brett drew a breath. "Why, Daniel, you have found me out. I longed to give Sid the chance to drive away and abandon us in the wilderness, bringing a perfect end to a most wonderful adventure, after which we will be devoured by wild boars." 

He was using the words, but...believe it or not, he didn't sound snippy enough. Too resigned, too flat, not enough backbone. And Danny marveled at himself for thinking it--who knew he'd ever find himself missing something like that?

Things got quiet again, so he finally took a sideways look. Brett, true to form, appeared to be rinsing each berry carefully with water from the flask before closely inspecting and then eating it, focused on the job with a strong set to his jaw. Danny figured he could have him on the ropes pretty easy from here, especially if Brett really had lost the bobbing-and-weaving rhythm. But there was something so vulnerable about his stiffbacked lordish posture, that jacket all fastened up.

"Okay, look," Danny said, relenting. "Would you do me a favor?" 

Brett eyed him warily, pausing with a berry held delicately between thumb and forefinger.

"Just, for the love of Mike, will you relax a little?" Danny couldn't help it; he reached over, ignoring Brett's reflexive twitch, and undid the jacket's central button. "You didn't have a problem unjacketing yourself while we were running all over like The Great Escape, so cut it out."

Brett just sighed and put the berry in his mouth. He could even _chew_ with disdain; Danny'd have to find out how he managed it. 

"Come on," Danny said. "You can take a nap, and this time I'll stand watch."

"A nap," said Brett, like the word didn't taste too good.

"Or whatever classy thing you people call it," Danny said. "You know, it's where you lie down and get just a little sleep, even without your silk sheets and your swan-feather pillows."

Brett cleaned and ate the last berry. "I know what a nap is," he muttered. "And my pillows are eiderdown." 

Danny flapped a hand at him. "Don't get technical with me, kid, it's been a really rough couple days."

"And getting rougher," Brett said acidly. He rinsed his fingertips--though for the life of him, Danny couldn't see a smudge of berry juice anywhere--and capped the flask with finality. But instead of jumping back up in a hurry to get going, it looked like he was suddenly willing to cooperate: he leaned forward to ease out of his jacket, delicately shook it out and spread it on the grass, and lay facedown on it, his head buried deep in his folded arms.

Now that was more like it. A little unwinding, just what the doctor ordered. Danny slouched down easily and crossed his legs, taking a deep breath of the sweet country air. The clearing was perfectly quiet, except for the trickle of the stream, an occasional singing bird, and underneath it all the low buzz of some kind of bugs or other. Sun filtered through the leaves, striping across the back of Brett's shirt. Still so white and clean, even after the running and the climbing and the barn, not to mention leaning against the tree--what was it made of, kryptonite? His broad back formed a triangle down to his waist, the long line of his hip leading to slim legs going on forever in light, clean slacks (Kryptonite, Danny was sure of it. That or black magic.). He made a pretty picture, stretched out peacefully on the turf, flecked with sunbeams and shade. A picture you could almost touch.

Oh, the heck with it. Danny rolled easily to his knees and shuffled to Brett's side, flopping down next to him with a sigh. Yup, it felt as nice here as it looked.

Brett stirred, just slightly. "I thought you were standing watch," he said, his voice muffled inside his arms.

Danny curled on one side, tucking a hand under his head. "Listen, after the trip we've had, who could stand? So I'm lying watch for a while." He thought that one over. "Okay...maybe not so much watching, either."

Not watching for bad guys, anyway. But definitely watching Brett; he was finding that it made for a nice hobby. From this close, he could see all the different shades that made up Brett's hair, blond to copper to red to brown. The southern European sun really did a number on him.

He was planning--if you could call something so lazy and formless 'planning'--to watch Brett sleep for a while. Something about it appealed to him. He figured it'd be soothing, like one of those TV nature shows, watching a lion dozing in the Serengeti sunshine. But he wasn't sure if Brett was ever actually going to sleep--he didn't roll around, exactly, but from his unsettled shifting and the tension all down his shoulders and back, not to mention his shallow breathing, nothing about him radiated sleepiness.

Maybe it was just that he couldn't relax with Danny around. Danny tried to think of it as a compliment--his company was too interesting, maybe. But he had to admit, he couldn't quite imagine Brett agreeing with that.

"What's the matter?" he asked kindly. "Ants?"

"That doesn't bear thinking about," said Brett, still muffled. 

Danny ran one hand across the narrow strip of grass separating them. It was soft and cool, with no ants anywhere to be seen. It was nice, the way the whole day was nice, the way the whole feeling he'd had ever since they'd finished up the darn job was nice. Maybe Brett wasn't sleeping for some of the same reasons Danny wasn't sleeping: when you were feeling this good, kind of floating along, who wanted to pass out and miss it?

He petted the grass again, his fingers trailing along right next to Brett's body. "Hey," he said.

Brett made a wordless questioning sound. He could sound so unenthusiastic with just one noise; it was a gift. 

Danny prodded him gently in the shoulder, where the white sleeve was smooth over flexed muscle. "I bet I know why you didn't get in the car."

There was a pause.

"Far be it from me to interfere with your enthusiastic wagering habits," Brett finally said from inside his folded arms. "But I am not interested in 'triple or nothing'. Nor am I interested in your ridiculous fretting over a circumstance that was nothing more than carelessness."

"Fretting!"

"Fretting," Brett said, muffled like he was talking through a pillow.

"I don't fret. And if I did, it wouldn't be about dumb stuff."

"You sounded terribly worried about it," Brett said. His tone was all cool and superior, guaranteed to needle Danny in a sore spot.

He grimaced at Brett's stupid unseeing head. "Oh, quit that, I wasn't worried. I just didn't want _you_ to worry about it, that's all. No harm done." 

One more dubious sound, and Danny added, "Because she's coming back, that's why. Boy, no one ever told me Doubting Thomas was an Englishman."

His own personal Thomas fell silent and just lay there, still not-sleeping with the best of 'em. A breeze rippled through the leaves, turning the sun patterns on Brett's back into a kaleidoscope.

Danny tugged lightly at a grass blade, discontented. His plan didn't feel so relaxing anymore. He'd been having such a good time, though who knew why--and now he wasn't having as good a time, and who knew why? Much as he didn't feel like admitting it, Brett was right, that Danny couldn't stop poking at it. 'Fretting,' even. Danny laid a palm on his own forehead, checking for a temperature. This wasn't like him. He'd learned how to live and let live while he was still in kneepants. When you wanted something, you went after it and got it; if for some reason you couldn't get it, then you stopped wanting it and went after something else. Easy. He'd learned to swim by getting shoved into the East River--and brother, you didn't live long in there by fighting the current.

He glowered at Brett for a while. It had been a perfectly good, drifting kind of day, and now it was getting all...complicated. Danny Wilde didn't do complicated, he didn't do Terribly Worried over dumb stuff, and heaven knew he didn't get hung up on things like this. 

"No I do _not,_ " he said under his breath.

"Talking in your sleep again?" Brett asked. He shifted and re-settled, his head turned away. "Or is it a conversation with your other personalities?"

"Funny. It's _you_ did this to me, you know," Danny said.

"Wake me when you come to a point."

"The point is..." Danny hesitated, which also wasn't like him, which made him feel even worse. He couldn't help it, he reached out to Brett's shoulder again and kind of shook it. "The _point_ is, I thought it might not've been an accident. I thought maybe you had the same reasons I had. That's all."

Oh, that did it. His shoulder was stiff in Danny's grasp. "You...what?" His voice was mild and careful, his face completely averted.

"I hoped-- Okay, fine, I _hoped_. You know, maybe you didn't get in the car for the same reasons I didn't get in the car. Satisfied?" 

Silence fell, heavy, and Brett turned his head slowly in the cradle of his arms until one eye peered out warily at Danny. He didn't get a chance to answer--if he even intended to--because at that moment they both caught a sound in the distance. Faint and far, but just audible: a low, rough hum, with a rumble underneath, that might have been the jeep. An engine, anyway, and the first thing that had used the road since they'd started out.

Danny searched Brett's visible eye for some kind of...for something, for who knew what. But it was really hard to read him like this, hiding behind his arms and the fall of sunstreaked hair over his forehead.

The noise got slightly louder, and Danny cleared his throat. "I guess you lose the bet."

"Perhaps so," Brett said. But otherwise he didn't move.

"Could be," said Danny. He didn't move either.

A few more seconds, Brett frozen in place, the engine sound getting clearer, and Danny finally looked away and let go of him. "I'll climb up and flag her down," he said, sitting up. "You can pay me when we get...back someplace. Where the money is."

He scrambled to his feet and headed for the upward slope, making a mental note to avoid the blackberry bushes--more stabs, he didn't need. What he did need was a drink.

"I say, Daniel...."

Ordinarily, Danny might've kept going, or just tossed an absent "What?" over his shoulder; once he made up his mind, he went about his business. But this...this was a different 'Daniel' from most of the ones he was familiar with by now. Husky and hesitant, with a vulnerability underneath that grabbed him by the back of the neck. He stopped and turned all the way around.

Brett had rolled over onto his back, and Danny finally got a good look at his face--but it was already changing, steadying, his mouth settling into an amused curve. "I thought you knew engines," Brett said, folding his hands behind his head, and that new fragility was gone.

Danny stared. "Yeah. So what's the problem now?"

"If you knew them half as well as you think," said Brett, "you'd know very well that that isn't the car Sid was driving."

"It isn't, huh?" Danny barely suppressed the urge to toss Brett over his shoulder and carry him up the hill to show him just how wrong he was. "You got a secret periscope I don't know about?"

"I don't need one," Brett said complacently.

"You just don't wanna lose the bet. Sorry, the _wager_."

"Daniel, I'm surprised at you. Even if the rest of you is falling to a shambles, surely your ears still work."

"They're working," Danny grumbled. "Overtime, when you get going."

"Then you should hear the difference in tone between the jeep and this engine. The lower register, the different handling of the fuel." As if the universe was in cahoots with His Dukeship, a hitching backfire came from up the slope, much rougher and harsher than the jeep's engine had been. This one, now that he mentioned it, the way it missed strokes and labored hollowly on the steep grade, it sounded more like...

"A truck," Danny said.

"See, that wasn't so difficult," Brett said encouragingly. "Another month or two and you'll be ready to learn how to shift gears."

Danny put his hands on his hips. "Right, I give, you got ears like a bat, you hang by your feet when you sleep, hooray. Can I go now?"

"I thought it important to emphasize that you still have not won the bet."

"Yet," Danny insisted.

"Yet," Brett said distinctly, through a little smile, obviously humoring him. 

"Hey, Fauntleroy." Danny waved up toward the distant road. "Bet or no bet, truck or no truck, if I don't get up there doubletime, we're going to miss--" 

He figured it then. Oh, did he figure it. It must've showed, too, because Brett's eyes widened, and his mask slipped. Danny got a good look at him, at last, and the helium in his chest was back full-force, bubbling like champagne. Brett's mouth was a little open, his brow furrowed, his eyes startled and even shy; he looked scared and hungry all at once. 

Danny cocked his head and pinned him with a broad smile. "You _did,_ " he said with great satisfaction. "You did feel the same way as me, you sneaky devil." 

While Brett was clearing his throat and trying to straighten out his expression--getting stuck somewhere between a stonefaced stare and an attempt at a scowl--Danny closed the distance, sinking back down next to him, leaning on one arm. 

"I shoulda known something was up when you made that bet," he said. "Since when did you ever make a bet you weren't hoping to win?"

"Since I met you," Brett replied, propping himself up on his elbows, "I seem to have made a career of losing. Just talk to my bookmaker."

Danny shrugged. "Well, you're doing good now. Sid's not back. We're out here by ourselves. That's what you wanted, right?"

"Are you insinuating--"

"Oh, don't, don't, with the syllables, your worship." Danny waved him off. "I'm not anything, I'm just saying. It's too late, anyway. I can see right through you."

Brett blinked. "Oh?" 

"Yeah." Danny looked him over head-to-toe with a bit of the old X-ray vision, but Brett didn't seem amused.

"You said my reasons were the same as your reasons," Brett said, rallying. "Perhaps you're simply projecting."

"Yuh huh," Danny scoffed. "Face it. You figured, hey, it's nice out, I'm feeling nice, it'd be nice to have a little time, just the two of us."

"That's what _you_ thought." Brett sounded triumphant. "You were the one caught up in everything being so...nice." He said that last word like Danny'd written it on the wall in crayon.

"Okay," Danny said easily, and Brett's stubborn mask was jarred again with surprise. "I did think that. But so did you, I can tell."

Brett started in with protesting or complaining or some other typical business, but Danny shushed him. "No arguments! Let's just admit that I'm a nice guy to spend time with." 

"I have no comment," Brett said tightly, and lay back down, hands behind his head again, radiating decisive relaxation. The kind of relaxation that tensed you up just watching it.

Didn't matter to Danny, though--his day was nice again. The sun was warm, the leaves filtered it into comfortable shade, the grass was soft, there weren't any ants to speak of. And Brett was lying there, filling his field of vision, willingly off alone with Danny without a case to tackle. Just for fun. He could deny it till his blue blood turned red in the face, but Danny knew it was true. So he indulged himself, watching Brett capital-R Relax, enjoying the way the leaf-shadows played on his hair.

"Daniel," Brett said after a while, with an effort. "You are staring." He looked over, and Danny caught his stricken gaze square-on.

"You bet." Danny beamed into Brett's eyes, fluttering his lashes.

Brett made that throat-clearing noise again, like something was stuck. "You keep _doing_ that."

"Hmm?" Danny perused his face, heavy-lidded. Brett sure did get a nice little sunburn accent in this climate, a blush of pink across the bronze. 

" _That,_ " Brett said, sounding desperate. 

"Mmm-hmm." Up close, Brett's eyes were like four different shades of blue. Same way his hair was. Like a mosaic.

"Well, how--" Brett shifted uneasily. His hands behind his head didn't look relaxed (or even Relaxed) anymore; now it was more like they were stuck there, leaving him open to enemy fire. "That is to say, I-- What the devil am I supposed to do about it?"

"What kind of a question is that?" Danny said absently. "You just...do whatever you want. You do what you feel like doing." He noticed that the fine, fair hair at Brett's temples had a tendency to curl.

"No," Brett said after a second. "I don't." He finally pulled his hands out from behind his head, folding them firmly over his chest instead.

"Aw, why not," Danny replied, half question and half personal philosophy. He watched Brett's lips move in a faint smile.

"If I once got onto that subject, there wouldn't be time enough to tell it all."

Danny waved a hand around at the trees, the water, the sky, the empty peace and quiet. The noise of the truck engine was long gone. "We got all the time there is."

Brett didn't launch into whatever he was thinking, though. He just swallowed a few times in a row, and Danny's attention fell to his throat, or what he could see of it above the neatly-tied ascot. The faint stubble there glittered bronze in the shifting sun. Danny wondered if Brett was one of those guys whose beards came in bright red. 

"Danny." Brett's voice had gone quiet and serious. "I'm not sure you realize what you're doing."

Danny looked back up to Brett's eyes. The sun was fading his eyebrows to white-blond, and the tips of his lashes, too. "What's that?" 

Brett gave a weird, choked little laugh. "Of course you don't. One might as well ask a fish whether it knows what swimming is. Danny--" There was that _Danny_ again. "--I know that...this is your ordinary behavior, and it doesn't mean anything. I'm simply asking you to take care. You might see something you don't like."

"Yeah," Danny said, finally focusing on Brett's strained expression. "All I see is that you're a worrywart all of a sudden. Fine, I'll stop staring." The arm he was leaning on was getting stiff anyway, so he flopped back down comfortably on the grass and scooted in, resting his head experimentally on Brett's shoulder. Turned out it was as nice a pillow as it looked. "How's that?"

"Will you...." Brett said between his teeth, trailing off as if he couldn't find a good verb.

"Sure," said Danny, happily contrary. He snuggled in. "Mmm."

He was fishing for a little less of the serious "Danny" Brett, and a little more of the long-suffering-lordship "Daniel" Brett. Brett had managed to sober up Danny's nice afternoon once already, and whatever bee was in his bonnet now, Danny figured, why feed it?

What he got, though, was...a surprise. Because what he got wasn't a solemn and cryptic talking-to, or even a gladly-exasperated insult that would let him know they were back on track. What he got was a hand touching his hair. Touching? Okay, _petting_ his hair. Awkward but definite. And not by accident, either. 

Danny peered up. Brett had that scared and hungry look again, but this time, it didn't vanish as soon as Danny saw it. And he didn't yank his hand back and pretend he'd just been stretching or something. So...was that how it was? Danny's playmates usually operated on a whole different level, so he truly hadn't seen it coming, not for real--he thought he knew a signal when he got one, but he hadn't gotten one this rusty and tentative in decades. 

But hey. Never let it be said that Danny Wilde didn't know how to handle a curveball. Even a creaky one.

" _Now_ who's staring?" he asked, spreading out, an ankle hooking over Brett's leg and an arm eeling across his chest. Using the leverage, he slithered partway on top, getting comfy.

Brett took a big breath, lowered his hand to Danny's shoulder, and held on. His grip felt warm through the T-shirt. "You..." he managed at last. "Are you...."

"Yeah?" Danny said. He nosed at the soft spot behind Brett's ear and felt a nice shudder underneath him. "Am I what? Am I comfortable? Yes, thank you, I'm very comfortable." 

Brett took another long, shaky breath, lifting Danny with the pressure of his chest, and let it out. "I...am not," he said quietly. And it didn't sound like he was talking about Danny sprawling all over his sternum, either--but Danny forgot what he was going to say about that, because the next second Brett slid his hand to Danny's wrist and pulled it down toward his fly. He stopped when Danny's hand was in the neighborhood of his hip and let go--what a gentleman--but Danny got the general idea. The sheer kilowattage of strain he felt in Brett's entire body, though, it could light cities. And not the good kind of strain, either. 

So Danny patted his hip and knelt up, astride Brett's waist. He yanked his own T-shirt inside-out over his head and tossed it someplace, unbuckled his belt, slipped the button, went for the zipper. But as his hand moved downward, all at once Brett's hands were there too, tugging upward and generally getting in the way.

"You're not helping," Danny said.

" _I_ am helping to maintain a little sanity," Brett said, though the hoarseness in his voice kind of undercut the lordly tone he seemed to be aiming for. 

"Overrated."

"Underappreciated." He held both of Danny's hands tightly between his. His eyes looked wild. 

"Okay, okay." Danny compromised by pulling his belt entirely off and flinging it someplace after the shirt--at least the buckle was out of the way--and lying back down, making sure Brett's own belt buckle didn't put pressure anywhere too inconvenient. He stretched out bare-chested on top of his new mattress and sighed regretfully in the direction of Brett's ear, rewarded by a little arch of the neck. "What is it with you?" he asked--cheating, though, as he spoke almost right up against Brett's skin, raising a shiver.

"There are...certain things..." Brett managed, "that are not for...public show."

"Public show, be serious. Nobody's here, you numbskull, or hadn't you noticed."

"Not--" Brett's voice caught as Danny nestled more comfortably atop him. "Not at the moment. But that's irrelevant."

Danny walked his fingertips over the blameless white shirt, pondering the fabric's dark secrets. Then he traced a wandering path: shoulder to neck, neck to ear, ending with his fingers sunk deep into Brett's hair. Brett didn't say anything wordy, but the hitches in his breathing were getting eloquent.

"You know," Danny said to the increasing pulse beneath Brett's jawline, "we're in the middle of nowhere. The middle of _no one_. No towns, no paths, no nothing. No _goats,_ even, and you know a place is secluded when there's no goats."

When Brett drew a long--if uneven--breath, maybe to argue, Danny added, "And it's not like anybody could sneak up on us, either--I mean, look at all the noise you made, crashing down here." He spoke right into Brett's ear: "I, on the other hand, move like a jungle cat."

Brett gave a scoffing sound, but his hands made their way to Danny's bare waist.

"Look, my lord," Danny said reasonably. "I'll tell you what. If someone suddenly parachutes in--" He worked his fingers against Brett's scalp, and grinned. "Boy, you do wear your hair long, don'tcha-- If someone does parachute in, we can just tell 'em the truth. You, being historically clumsy, fell in the stream, and I was...rescuing you."

Brett was still for a second. Then he moved his head against Danny's hand, pushing and restless. "Jungle cat," he said with low disbelief, a verbal eye-roll. And as if given permission, he smoothed his palms over Danny's skin, and trailed his impeccable manicure along Danny's spine.

"That's more like it." Danny stretched under Brett's hands, which explored his back and sides, his arms and shoulders and the nape of his neck, with the touch of a novice sculptor. Novice, but eager. His hands kept stopping right at Danny's waistband, temptingly low on the small of his back, and finally Danny slid up a bit to give him a little more reach. 

The slide earned him a jab from Brett's belt buckle, though. "Ow." 

Brett's hands lifted as if Danny's back had burned him.

"Not you," Danny said, easing over to a much better spot along Brett's hip. "You're doing good, kid." He settled in again, idly toying with the ascot, tracing over the silken knot, the trailing ends that had finally come untucked from Brett's collar. He followed one end to where it lay on Brett's shirt and lost himself in a lazy examination of the contrasting textures, moving fabric against fabric, then fabric against skin and muscle underneath. His fingertips got an interesting response. Eventually, he tried his mouth, and a gentle nip of teeth. 

Brett's hands suddenly touched him again, but now they weren't just warm, they were hot and damp, clutching at his ribs. A fitful push, and Danny cooperatively rose up a little. For just a second he thought Brett had lost his few remaining marbles and was planning to peel them apart and pretend he had a very important appointment someplace else. But instead, Brett reached up to tug the ascot open and off, and began to slip the shirt buttons with unsteady haste, laying bare his collarbone, the muscle of his upper chest, moving south. 

Danny eased up further to make room, feasting his eyes. Brett struggled with his shirtsleeves but abandoned the attempt, leaving the shirt hanging open, then fumbled with his belt buckle, lifting up underneath Danny in clumsy and enjoyable ways before managing to yank the entire thing off. Danny opened his mouth to make a joke, something about white belts and Labor Day, or white belts and any day at all--but Brett grabbed at him unexpectedly, and he fell back down without planning the landing. Given the whoof of air that came out, he must've elbowed his lordship in the breadbasket.

"Serves you right," he grinned against Brett's broad, smooth expanse of chest. "Bossy."

This was ordinarily the part where people with that kind of build liked to wrap him up and roll them both over, maybe because Danny was so economically put together. And that was good, it could be plenty fun, especially when it turned into a little bit of a wrestling match. Brett, though, showed no sign of the traditional flip and roll. Instead, he sort of spread out under Danny's body, soft and warm and yielding. He wasn't talking much, which kept Danny's habitual string of remarks and encouragement to a minimum, but he was gently and persistently demanding, arching his neck or back, turning his head, telegraphing what he needed with every movement and tiny little noise. 

Yeah, bossy was still the word. Danny grumbled happily about it, and went to town.

Bit by bit, Danny got Brett completely disheveled, his breathing uneven, one arm flung back over his head, fingers rhythmically curling and relaxing. Brett's other hand had gradually returned to explorations of his own--not so awkward or tentative anymore, but careful, nothing taken for granted. Danny made helpful sounds--when he wasn't otherwise occupied--and brought Brett off very gently, mindful of the lingering tension in there somewhere. Maybe he was just missing his eiderdown.

When Brett had gasped his way back to some kind of awareness, though, his eyes cleared with a quick nervousness Danny'd thought was gone. He looked anxiously past Danny's shoulder and from side to side, as if a Swiss game warden was gonna be there tapping his foot and checking his watch.

"Hey," Danny said, settling in again, easing his muscles and stretching elaborately. Now that the ascot was gone, he could talk much more comfortably against Brett's throat. "Nobody's here."

A few breaths lifted him up and down. Then: "You're here," Brett said, inscrutably.

Danny yawned. "It's just me." 

Another few breaths.

"Daniel." 

"Uh-hmm." 

" _Daniel_."

Danny squirmed up a bit and pulled his gaze to Brett's face, waiting for the final objection or the verdict or whatever. But instead Brett put two gentle fingers under Danny's chin and kissed him. 

It wasn't rough, with something to prove; it wasn't a firm thanks-buddy dismissal; it wasn't casual or playful. Danny knew all of those really well, knew and expected them, but this was not a fooling-around kiss. It was surprisingly sweet, literally and figuratively--a taste of blackberries, a tender, soft mouth, cherishing Danny like something delicate and irreplaceable. Danny was answering before he realized it, responding with a timidity he hadn't known was there. 

\--Okay, Danny Wilde didn't get knocked off-balance in this kind of situation; he was ready for a curveball, or even a knuckler. But--his stomach lurched with something he didn't anticipate, and he suddenly thought he knew just how Brett had felt earlier, eyes wild, shirt safely buttoned up, gripping Danny's hands to keep them still. 

He couldn't help it, he had to break off, mustering a grin that weighed a hundred pounds. "See, that didn't kill ya."

Brett studied him, and Danny polished his grin up until it was blinding. He couldn't tell what Brett thought, or whether he thought anything--but the scrutiny stopped, and Brett reached down, hands suddenly steady on him now, firm and practiced. Impersonal, even, and Danny relaxed, letting him take the lead in what now seemed distanced enough and familiar enough to them both. He let his eyes close, and he told himself it was so Brett could feel unobserved. 

Afterward, it didn't take too long for Danny to catch his breath--he prided himself on his conditioning--and he sat up again, leaning on one arm. Brett was still sprawled out flat on his back like someone had dropped him from a height, and his face was turned away. Danny rummaged for the right thing to say. _So, thanks_ didn't cover it, _What the heck is happening here_ was something he wasn't thinking about right now, and none of his store of knock-knock jokes seemed to apply. 

Except maybe for "Knock knock."/"Who's there?"/"Us."/"Us who?", and Danny didn't have a punchline for that one.

He finally settled on a cheerfully heartless reminder that they still had twenty-some miles to cover--but by the time he was ready to say it, he peered over more closely and noticed that Brett had fallen asleep. He slept silently, his mouth a little open, looking like the dictionary definition of exhaustion. Or possibly prostration. Well, that was one way to force him to get some rest.

Danny climbed to his feet and went to the stream, taking a drink and cleaning himself up with his wet hands, wincing at the cold. He buttoned and zipped, went prospecting for his shirt and belt, and pulled himself back together. He even found his scattered gloves and tucked them in his waistband again. Brett just lay there the whole time, solidly conked out and completely askew, open and defenseless. It took a minute for Danny to find the scarf, which had somehow ended up smushed beneath them, most of the way under Brett's jacket. He dampened it in the stream and held it between his hands a while in the sun, letting it warm. Then with matter-of-fact care, he cleaned Brett up too, fastened his zipper, buttoned his shirt most of the way. Tidy. The belt would be too much of a production, so he just coiled it neatly. The scarf got a good rinse and wring, spread in a patch of sun to dry. 

Danny sat against a tree and watched Brett sleep for a good while after that, though he wasn't thinking about lions in the Serengeti anymore, and he didn't feel very sleepy himself.

Was Brett starting to snore? No, that wasn't it. And it sure better not be giant bees, or he'd never hear the end of it. It was another engine, distant and low, but coming closer.

"Brett." Nothing. "Brett." He sprang to Brett's side and poked him in the arm. "Breeeeeett."

Brett waking up was, if possible, even more of a sight to see than Brett sleeping like he'd been clubbed. He winched himself into a sitting position, his miles of hair all on end like a blond tornado, blinking and yawning and soft-mouthed. Danny could pinpoint the moment he actually came to: his eyes opened wide, and his hands darted as if to cover himself and button back up. It took a few dumbfounded seconds of patting and tugging for it to sink in that it wasn't necessary. The visible relief that overcame him left Danny without a wisecrack, for once. 

So Danny just offered him his belt and the folded scarf. Brett stared at him, opened his mouth with a breath in--then closed it firmly, and took them. He unhesitatingly took Danny's outstretched hand, as well, and for a second they braced themselves, counterbalanced, the coiled energy back again, but with something more. Then in an easy cooperative move Danny hauled Brett to his feet, Brett grabbing up his jacket-slash-blanket on the way, and they scrambled up the hill without any more delays. This time Brett got a few thorns before they were through, and he emerged sucking on the side of his hand.

The panel truck--again it wasn't Sid, though it probably wasn't the same truck from before, either--pulled over at Danny's enthusiastic waving. Danny tried his basic Italian, making sure to say _per favore_ like a good boy; Brett interrupted him partway through in French. Whether the heavy, mustached driver understood either of them, who knew; he just nodded and waved both hands at them wordlessly, shooing them toward the back.

For a moment, they paused by the truck bed, looking into the truck and then at each other. 

"Well, whaddya know," Danny said. "There's goats."

Two of them, actually, tied up to the panel sides, chewing placidly on a heap of hay.

Nobody gave anybody a boost this time; they hopped up together like they'd rehearsed it, landing with an oomph seated side by side, their legs dangling off the end. The truck ground its gears and rumbled forward.

Brett draped his jacket and belt across his lap and started belatedly trying to smooth down his hair before it escaped his head. Danny, watching with delight, noticed something else. He put out one dramatic finger and drew it down Brett's shoulder blade, marveling. It was a grass stain, large as life and twice as green, streaked lightly on the shirt's back and upper sleeve.

"What?" Brett demanded.

"Not so clean anymore," Danny said.

Brett took a look and made a hmphing sound through his nose. They rode on in silence for a minute--silence, at least, if you subtracted the coughing of the engine and the chewing of the goats. 

But then Brett said, in a thoughtful deadpan, "I suppose that does match my thinking."

Danny's brows rose, and he whistled, nudging Brett's foot. 

"You realize I win the bet," Brett quickly went on. "Double or nothing."

"Oh, c'mon--"

"Double," Brett said sternly.

"All _right,_ " Danny groused. "You win. You are the winner. This once in your life, so enjoy it while you can."

"I shall."

Danny thought it over. "You know what? So shall I."

Brett, slipping back into his jacket, shot him a suspicious look.

"No, really." Danny leaned into Brett's shoulder as the truck jolted around a bend, and Brett leaned just enough in return to balance them perfectly. "I mean, now you get to take me out to a nice dinner, so I can give my money a proper goodbye."

"You can send it a telegram."

"With lots of champagne," Danny said, as if Brett hadn't spoken. 

"Daniel--"

"And a nice dessert."

Brett rolled his eyes, and Danny kept on being a pain in the neck, and they leaned against each other all the way home.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Grateful thanks to Kay, Jill, Arduinna, and PFL, for all kinds of help above and beyond the call.


End file.
